Jay's Articles

Posted on 3/18/2015 3:24 PM By Jay

March 23, 2015

GLEN ARGAN
WESTERN CATHOLIC REPORTER

The peak of excitement and enthusiasm at the Second Vatican Council likely occurred in the first two sessions of 1962 and 1963. The fourth and final session in the autumn of 1965, writes council historian Giuseppe Alberigo, was characterized by "a sense of emptiness." The final session, which ran from Sept. 14 to Dec. 8, was also marked by "frenetic activity," Alberigo wrote. However, while frenetic, that activity was neither fulfilling nor constructive in itself.

Posted on 3/4/2015 1:42 PM By Jay

March 9, 2015

GLEN ARGAN
WESTERN CATHOLIC REPORTER

An endorsement of democracy is sometimes seen as one of the "achievements" of the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (Gaudium et Spes). The constitution does not actually use the word "democracy," but its intentions are clear enough. While the political community needs to respect an order established by God, "the choice of the political regime and the appointment of rulers are left to the free decision of the citizens" (GS 74).

Posted on 2/13/2015 1:44 PM By Jay

February 23, 2015

GLEN ARGAN
WESTERN CATHOLIC REPORTER

The chapter in the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (Gaudium et Spes) that focuses on economic and social life is perhaps more notable for what it led to than for what it actually said. This is not to diminish the fact that the chapter underlines and thus strengthens the Catholic social teaching that had been developing since Pope Leo XIII's 1891 encyclical Rerum Novavum. It also links that teaching to the central theme of Gaudium et Spes - the dignity and vocation of the human person created in the image of God.

Posted on 2/4/2015 11:30 AM By Jay

February 9, 2015

GLEN ARGAN
WESTERN CATHOLIC REPORTER

From the beginning, the Church has tried to evangelize culture, to build on what is good and to imbue it with the spirit of the Gospel. When St. Paul went to Athens and found an altar dedicated to an unknown God, he used that to try to convince the Athenians that the God who created the world is the Lord of heaven and earth (Acts 17.22-28). When missionaries have tried to throw out the culture they wanted to evangelize with a supposedly pure Christian culture, they have created problems. The culture they imported was invariably not pure, but rather a European culture that supplanted the indigenous one with colonialism.

Posted on 1/22/2015 11:48 AM By Jay

January 26, 2015

GLEN ARGAN
WESTERN CATHOLIC REPORTER

The Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (Gaudium et Spes) began as a patchwork of various proposed documents on social issues that had been put forward by the commissions charged with writing documents for consideration at the Second Vatican Council. It is tempting to see part two of Gaudium et Spes as an appendix to the main document that wraps some of these earlier documents into one huge pastiche. What is remarkable, however, is how well the five "urgent problems" discussed in part two are woven into one constitution and how well they flow from the Gaudium et Spes' central focus on the nature of the human person.

Posted on 1/8/2015 3:35 PM By Jay

January 12, 2015

GLEN ARGAN
WESTERN CATHOLIC REPORTER

My own commitment to the Church and to Christian living has been strengthened by encounters and friendships with numerous Christians who give of themselves to make the Gospel come alive in the broader society. Wherever one turns, it seems, there are Catholics involved in their professional associations, volunteer organizations, various forms of advocacy for the vulnerable, including the unborn, the dying, the poor and the disabled, and assorted political parties.

Posted on 12/24/2014 11:40 AM By Jay

December 29, 2014

GLEN ARGAN
WESTERN CATHOLIC REPORTER

Over the last 500 years, writes the Canadian Catholic philosopher Charles Taylor in his book A Secular Age, the Western world has been transformed into a society of "disenchantment." By saying that society is disenchanted, Taylor does not mean that it has become fed up or disillusioned. Rather, he means the widespread sense that spiritual forces are at work which will protect us and ultimately triumph over evil has been lost. Prior to the onset of disenchantment, Taylor argues, people naturally assumed there was a thin veil between the material and the spiritual, and that the material world, including human persons, was constantly being affected by the actions of spiritual beings.

Posted on 12/10/2014 3:20 PM By Jay

December 15, 2014

GLEN ARGAN
WESTERN CATHOLIC REPORTER

One seemingly obvious line in the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World augurs, not a change in Church teaching, but in the Church's attitude to society and social change. "The social order requires constant improvement," says the constitution, also known by its Latin name, Gaudium et Spes (n. 26). Today, few people would question such a sentiment. Of course, they would agree, we should do our best to make a better society and eliminate social evils.

Posted on 11/26/2014 9:13 AM By Jay

December 1, 2014

GLEN ARGAN
WESTERN CATHOLIC REPORTER

The Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (Gaudium et Spes) is divided into two lengthy sections – the first on the Church and the human vocation and the second on five "urgent problems" facing the world. The first section begins with a chapter on the dignity of the human person where the council fathers discuss what makes someone human. Why does the document focus on that concern? To answer that question, one needs to see where the first part is going. It wants to set down a foundation for discussing those urgent problems in part two – marriage and the family, human culture, economic and social life, the political community and the need for world peace.

Posted on 11/12/2014 10:12 AM By Jay

November 17, 2014

GLEN ARGAN
WESTERN CATHOLIC REPORTER

The famous opening line of the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (Gaudium et Spes) is a stirring reminder of the Church's solidarity with the global society: "The joys and hopes, the grief and anguish of the people of our time, especially of those who are poor or afflicted, are the joys and hopes, the grief and anguish of the followers of Christ as well. Nothing that is genuinely human fails to find an echo in their hearts." The second sentence should not be surprising since the followers of Christ are themselves "genuinely human."